Close-Up: Room Divider as Color Accent

The room divider keeps coming up--in the form of a bookcase, a screen or a huge wonderful piece of fabric. Axel and Sylvia have a home that morphs into a gallery space at times. To achieve the smooth transition between living and entertaining, they use a curtain. It's a great way to visually close off a room, and if the fabric is heavy enough, it offers the added value of some sound attenuation as well.

And, most importantly, considering this month's theme at Apartment Therapy, the curtain room divider can provide an incredible infusion of color. When you don't want all that color, you can push the curtain out of the way. When you want a lot of color, pull it out and reveal it in all it's vibrancy. And when you don't want to ever see that color again, take it down, and choose another fabric. Give the old one to a friend or swap with another fabric room divider fan.

In the case of Axel and Sylvia, their rich brown velvet curtain serves two purposes. It isolates the living room but, if they pull it all the way across, it also hides their work space--desk, bookshelves, and files!

The curtain can run along hospital track installed directly into the ceiling, or on a rod that extends between the two opposing walls of the room. Make sure it's easy to pull the curtain back and forth, otherwise it will be much less fun to own it/use it.